Your Heart will Follow Your Head
Last year I had the opportunity to help establish and set up a new small group for young wives, through our church. We started off with a weekly marriage tip. I decided to post those on here, for any young wives... or older who may need a spiritual boost in their marriage.
Marriage Tip #1
I could have also titled this tip Love the Emotion vs. Love the Action. Were you aware that there are more than one type of love. Love the Emotion is what we marry the love of our lives with. But Love the Action is what keeps your marriage held together. Love the Emotion fades in and out. It is after all just an emotion and we all know that emotions rarely use common sense. LOL! No, it's that Love in Action that uses the brain and not the heart. It makes the tough decision to keep on keeping on, staying devoted to your marriage even when love the emotion is feeling rather selfish and wants to take a break from loving the spouse and would rather spend the day making itself happy with what ever runaway emotion it can find. The good news is that once we make the decision to follow Love the Action, which by the way, comes from our thinker, our heads, then Love the Emotion, soon will follow. And the emotional love that was wanning this morning will be alive and vibrant by supper time. Let me give you an example... Every Sunday evening my husband comes through the front door of our house, past the cabinet where we keep our Bibles... you know, the same one he took his Bible out of that very morning, and leaves it on the piano, where it stays, I might add, until I move it back to the cabinet to start the cycle again next Sunday. LOL! This creates a reaction in my emotions. First I want to get upset with Tim because I feel unappreciated. Love the Emotion's bright flame begins to dim... "Does he even notice that his Bible has been put back up?!" The flame is flickering... Then I want to mother him (also known as degrading him) by reminding him that he's not a little boy and that he can put things away himself. BUT then Jesus speaks to me, and says, "Why dont you put the Bible away without remark as a love offering to Me... and to Tim." And when the decision is made, Love in Action says "Yes, Lord, that's a great idea, then Love the Emotion flame is burning bright again and settles back into its cozy place and gently puts back on the rose colored glasses for a while longer. Now that's pretty trivial, I KNOW, but it's those small, trivial decision that if left up to Love the Emotion would eventually build up, creating walls and divides between you and your hubs. Then once the walls are up, much larger issues are allowed in that are much harder to recover from. Never let the small things go unchecked! Make the decision today to pray on a daily basis for God to show you ways that you can love your spouse not just in word but in deed, in action.
